The Metro: Exploring gender roles in 2024, from ‘girlboss’ to ‘trad wife’

The ​incoming ​Trump ​administration ​wants ​a ​return ​to ​traditional ​family ​values, ​and ​a ​lot ​of ​people ​who ​voted ​for ​him ​do ​too. What ​does ​that ​mean ​for ​women ​and ​the ​many ​roles ​that ​we ​take ​on ​in ​society? ​And ​are ​we ​taking ​on ​too ​much?

Dr. Phillip Hammack is a professor at University of California, Santa Cruz, and is an expert on gender and sexual identity diversity. He joined The Metro on Friday to discuss how gender roles have shifted in the past decade.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Dr. Hammack said that labels popularized on social media like “girlboss” (a woman who’s particularly career-driven) and “trad wife” (a woman who follows more traditional gender roles in her marriage) show the expansion of society’s perception of womanhood to more than one specific stereotype.

“I think what’s exciting about these kinds of titles is it’s showing that ideas around how to be a woman, how to inhabit your gender, have now opened up, and there are options,” he said. “Those kinds of micro labels say, ‘You can inhabit your womanhood in different ways, and that’s okay.’”

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

More headlines from The Metro on Dec. 13, 2024: 

• Women now represent half of the labor force, and woman CEOs now run about 10 percent of Fortune 500 companies. But there are still a lot of challenges for women navigating the workplace. Professor Aparna Joshi of UM’s Ross School of Business joined the show to discuss.
• Despite Detroit’s high levels of poverty, roughly 20 percent of the city’s public housing units were empty in September. As of October, Arthur Jemison became the Detroit Housing Commission’s new executive director. He joined the show to discuss his own experience with public housing, and how he plans to turn the Commission around.
• With candidates like City Council President Mary Sheffield and potentially former Councilwoman Saunteel Jenkins, Detroit could elect its first woman mayor next year. Eboni Taylor is the Vice President of programs for Higher Heights America, a political action committee that works to get more Black woman candidates elected to federal, state and local offices across the country. She joined the show to discuss what could be ahead for the city.